Current Events in the Americas

From Air Force Times Ecuador: U.S. must leave Manta next year By Gonzalo Solano - The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Jul 30, 2008 9:42:50 EDT QUITO, Ecuador — The U.S. military must stop using its only outpost in South America for anti-drug flights when Washington’s 10-year lease on the base in Ecuador expires in 2009, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Leftist President Rafael Correa has repeatedly said that Ecuador would not renew the agreement to use the Manta air base, but Tuesday’s Foreign Ministry statement said the South American nation has now formally notified the U.S. Embassy of the decision. Some 300 U.S. troops are stationed at the Pacif…

Excerpts of interest from Navy Times 2010 lookahead: What’s ahead in the new year Staff report Posted : Monday Jan 4, 2010 6:13:39 EST CARRIERS & STRIKE GROUPS • The Dwight D. Eisenhower is scheduled to deploy in January. [CV32: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left Norfolk on 2 January, to be followed by the Carrier Air Wing Seven, the destroyers McFaul, Carney, and Farragut, and the cruiser Hue City. The strike group is headed to the Indian Ocean] • The Harry S. Truman will follow a couple of months later, marking its second eight-month deployment in as many years. • Enterprise, late coming out of the yard, will be back in acti…

Two opposing points of view: US Navy Needs Diesel Submarines and Old Tech Isn't the Answer

Navy Axes Griffin Missile In Favor of Longbow Hellfire for LCS (USNI News)

From Offiziere [excerpt] The 'before' and 'after' pics:

From Defense Aerospace Navy Terminates Littoral Combat Ship 3 (Source: US Department of Defense; issued April 12, 2007) Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced today that the Department of the Navy is terminating construction of the third Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 3) for convenience under the Termination clause of the contract because the Navy and Lockheed Martin could not reach agreement on the terms of a modified contract. The Navy issued a stop-work order on construction on LCS 3 in January following a series of cost overruns on LCS 1 and projection of cost increases on LCS 3, which are being built by Lockheed Martin under a cost-plus contract. …

From DefenseNews Admiral: Capability More Vital for U.S. Navy Than Numbers By ANDREW SCUTRO The U.S. Navy does not need to be larger, just more able, said Vice Adm. Joe Sestak, deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements, at the Navy League’s March 22-24 Sea Air Space expo in Washington. Sestak said the Navy plans to fight as a smaller, more concentrated joint network to meet the demands of carrying on the potentially endless global war on terror, fighting a large-scale conventional war and reacting to other contingencies. “Our Navy of the future is not measured in numbers of ships,” he told a seminar on force projection. “It’s measured in c…

From Jane's Information Group USN considers army missile for Littoral Combat Ship By Scott R Gourley Last year's restructuring of the US Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) has brought one FCS element, the Non Line of Sight - Launch System (NLOS-LS), into contention for integration on the initial versions of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Originally developed under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's 'NetFires' concept, NLOS-LS emerged as a family of artillery missiles fired from a vertical launcher that could be deployed by ground or air assets throughout a theatre and networked to quickly engage an enemy. System components originally included a …

This is interesting: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_warship_record Buddha

From DefenseNews [excerpt] Link to the document Naval Aviation Vision, January 2012 (PDF) Update to the Carrier air wings thread in the FAQ subforum includes details of the future USN air wings and USMC aviation combat elements.

US Navy Employment Options for Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) (RAND, pdf)

From DefenseNews [excerpt]

US Navy report to Congress outlining the policies and practices for naming Navy vessels (July 13, 2012) Final Ship Naming Report to Congress

From Flight Global [excerpt]

US Navy Launches UAV from a Submarine (USNI News)

From DefenseNews U.S. Navy Lays Out 30-Year Fleet Plan By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS The U.S. Navy plans to operate 11 aircraft carriers for the next quarter century, according to a new 30-year force structure plan sent to Congress on March 23. A copy of the report was obtained by DefenseNews.com. The plan also shows the service hopes to build up to a dozen of the new DD(X) destroyers — currently estimated to cost about $3 billion a copy — and up to 18 CG(X) cruisers, a derivative of the DD(X) devoted to ballistic missile defense. The plan, signed by Navy Secretary Gordon England, is described as an “interim report” on ship levels through fiscal 2035. Englan…

US Navy Missile Defense: The Vision Realized ... a series of articles about US Navy missile defense, yesterday, today, and tomorrow (from Defense Media Network) Part 1: The Transition From Guns to Missiles Part 2: Building and Deploying the US Navys Missile Fleet with Urgency Part 3: Getting Surface-to-Air Missile Development Started Part 4: The Three Ts Talos, Terrier, and Tartar Part 5: Building an Aegis Fleet Part 6: The Tipping Point Part 7: The Vision Realized - The evolution of Aegis BMD

From Flight International DATE: 23/12/08 SOURCE: Flightglobal.com US Navy mulls slashing F-35C orders next year By Stephen Trimble The US Navy has disclosed it may cut as many as three out of four carrier variant aircraft from next year's batch of orders for Lockheed Martin F-35s. Any cuts would reduce the overall number of F-35s ordered in the fourth lot of low rate initial production (LRIP-4) from 32 to as low as 29. The US Air Force and the US Marine Corps still intend to buy 13 F-35As and 15 F-35Bs, respectively, according to an acquisition notice posted yesterday. But the first batch of F-35Cs purchased during the LRIP phase could vary from …

From Defence Aerospace Navy's First Littoral Combat Ship Honors Freedom (Source: US Department of Defense; issued May 9, 2005) Secretary of the Navy Gordon England has selected the name Freedom for the Navy’s first new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The future USS Freedom acknowledges the enduring foundation of our nation and honors American communities from coast to coast which bear the name Freedom. States having towns named Freedom range from New York to California, and include Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming. “These new, fast and capable ships will increase the effectiveness of our naval forces and provide…

US Navy on track for high-altitude P-8A weapon (Flight Global)